This is really good of your friend but I agree with Henrikoolsen. Without comparisons to understand, these numbers would just confuse and cause panic. I live within the earthquake zone, spent hours outside with my Japanese community during March 11th's M9. I live in Ibaraki prefecture while my brother-in-law lives to the north of us in Fukushima, just outside evacuation zone of the Nuclear Plant. Many people here already have a great information sources, trustworthy sources, to turn to for radiation information. All city halls have their own Geiger counters. Even my son's yochien (aka kindergarten) has it own counter which they post daily readings on their blog). Though it is nice that people all have their own, the information is out there on the appropriate sites. I also live next to Tsukuba City, the Science city of Japan where all the leading scientists live. They have been very very good at providing data concerning daily radiation readings. Though your friend's goal is very generous I think he should fully research the the prefectures involved more thoroughly on what data is available. I think there are better ways to help those in Fukushima.

This morning, my friend Sean Bonner e-mailed me this: As you may or may not know I’ve spent the vast majority of the last month either in Tokyo or working with people in Japan on project I helped start called Safecast. Actually we just changed the name to Safecast, until last week it was called...